I'm a fan of both Tales Coffee and your channel, so it's great to see this review! I'd also love your thoughts on their more recent "Stall the Fall" method.
I've been playing around with Tales Coffee's recipe for at least around six months now, I think that Vince's recipe takes some muscle memory & careful attention to the behavior of the beans to get right. At least with the coffees I've brewed lately, I've added back in a bloom but I gained a lot of insight about water flow & how pouring technique affects the movement of the coffee bed from both their TH-cam content & the technique itself. The lower brew temperature & the final stir are interesting high points in the technique; before I had used the Hoffman method, which by comparison doesn't seem to agitate the coffee bed well enough for single serving brews. For now I've picked things I liked from both methods.
As usual, an important video for the discussion that is absent from most of the reviewers thanks to you, everything is important in coffee world waiting the next 🌹
Interesting! I first tried the Tales' no bloom a few months ago. Previously I had done Hoffman's ultimate V60 technique. Subjectively the no bloom was sweeter and brighter everytime; highlighting my favourite parts of coffee. I've tried bloom since, but I can't say it's been noticably better or worse. For me, I think I acclimate quickly, so changes in brewing technique apparently snap me out of the doldrums.
The Hario Mugen Dripper, though similar in look to the V60, is designed to be able to brew with one slow continuous pour. I have one and like it a lot.
I have been testing an ”immersion-bloom” method with great results. 55g of dark roast quality beans to 1l of almost boiling water. Pour over 1/4 of the water and let bloom/immerse for up to 2min. Release and Pour over the rest of the water as normal. Makes for a great cup of darkroast👍🏻
I've experimented with bloom vs no bloom and found that my darker roasted coffee does slightly better with no bloom after 2 or 3 weeks past roast but medium roast ended up tasting slightly bitter and hollow in flavor no matter what.
I didn’t have any real dark roasts on hand, but I feel like it could be a toss up with them. I’d be curious to know how much c02 would be left in a dark vs a medium vs a light after 3 weeks.
Agreed on the dark roasts. Since Japan and other Asian countries often go to darker roasts , and the dude from Tales talks about learning over there , I imagine there’s a connection between the roast darkness and the method.
Haha it definitely depends, and I know a lot of people bloom longer with older coffees. Not only does it depend, but like I said it’s all a matter of preferences.
@@Sprometheus I'm curious, since older coffees have by definition almost less CO2 (degassed more), what's the rationale behind longer blooms with older coffees?
@@Sprometheus this means we as a community are lacking in ways to communicate flavours, which is what matters most ultimately, we should talk more flavours :)
Attempting to shave 30s off my pour-over routine, I've been more interested recently in canceling the filter rinse than the bloom. I can't seem to taste the filter paper, and the plastic v60 doesn't act like much of a heatsink. It's trickier seating a dry filter properly, however.
Yeah I think the paper flavor can be pretty subtle, but ranges from filter to filter. But I don’t see a real problem with kicking that part of the process. A lot of traditional Japanese brew methods don’t rise.
Nice! I've tried the Tales Coffee no bloom a few times. It's been fun to try (and great if I'm in a time crunch!) and it helps it tastes great too. Bouncing back and forth between the two methods. It's also helpful to know about off-roast and bloom/no bloom. Thanks for that!
It’s always good to have a variety of methods, and I think some coffees will always work better in some and not as well in others. But that’s all part of the fun! Cheers!
I've noticed the hollow and bitter astringency finishes aren't actually signs of over extraction or CO2 but are actually from channeling and uneven extractions caused by not getting all the coffee wet initially. I do a blooming period for pour overs (with a stirring of the spoon as well) because I get way more consistent results and never get that horrible astringency flavor. I don't think it makes sense to pin astringency on over extraction or CO2 because I can throw a three day old coffee into a french press and stir it for a minute and steep for another 10 and there's no astringency. Wouldn't the CO2 dissolve into the french press coffee? The whole idea of CO2 ruining coffee doesn't make sense to me. It's really just the bubbling from the CO2 that can lead to big chunks of the coffee being dry when doing a pour over and creating that a channel and the nasty astringency.
Also grind the might before for your morning coffee. I know it goes against everything we've been taught, but it allows the coffee to degass properly and providing more clarity in the cup. Try it out!
With the Tales method, the fast side pour at the end would create more agitation (extraction) that a lighter pour wouldn't, even with the possible bypass. Maybe that balances out the lack of flavour/depth in your tests? You could do a final fast center pour as well to avoid the bypass issue like Lance Hendrick/Elika from Onyx.
I wish we could test if a bloom does the same thing for espresso that it does for pour over. Maybe comparing bloomed and unbloomed shots for crema, since releasing CO2 at low pressure shouldn't dissolve it into foam? I also have heard the bloom prevents fines migration by locking them in place with water-swollen coffee particles. That would be a good test for a sifter I think, if a bloomed shot and a sifted bloomed shot came out similar while unbloomed sifted and unsifted shots taste very different/extract differently.
Laziness usually has be using NO-bloom almost 100% of the time. The results are so-so with the medium roast coffee but pretty good with the dark French roast coffee. I'm in the process of trying more roasting methods to see how they fare.
Did you agitate aggressively with the chopstick at the end of the brew? I can see you moving the chopstick at 3:55 but that was very slow. I'm pointing this out because I have had some great results with this even with a month old medium roast.
@@Sprometheus oh is that so? What works best for me, is to agitate it in such a way that the grounds settled at the bottom also get in the whirlpool. So I hypothesize that some of the water might bypass while the rest will extract and overall provide a balanced brew. I might be wrong though.
I feel like most people don't really understand what's happening under a bloom. Sure it is releasing CO2, but that's in my honest opinion not the most important thing a bloom does, that would be difusion. As the water gets soaked into the coffee it drags flavor compunds to the surface of the gorund coffee (this is a very basic explination, check out the exelent book "the physics of filter coffee" for a more detailed explination) making it easier to extract those flavor componds in the following perculation phases after the bloom. Jonathon Gagne (author of said book) have noticed messurable increeses in extraction (around 1%) by blooming up to 2 whole min compared to more normal bloom times people would usually use. This is not so say people actually SHOULD bloom for 2 min, but it goes to show that CO2 release is not really the only reason to do a bloom
Bloom is not for removing CO2 from coffee, let's stop this speculation, please. CO2 is removed anyway, whether you bloom the coffee or not, in fact it will happen even faster *without* blooming. The point of blooming is that the extraction starts already in the blooming phase, but at a lower temperature. You can think of it this way: you take 15g of coffee at room temperature (25C) and add 30-40g of water at 95C, and this heats the coffee to about 60-65C, as opposed to the main brewing phase when the coffee is heated to 85-90 degrees. This is why the coffee gets a different taste.
@@Sprometheus Yeah for sure!! It's kind of intriguing though and I'm interested to see how it will play out! Going to try it as I have copious amounts of beans currently. In the conclusion though when you think about it also, the beans over time will release it's gases so in theory over a longer waiting time you wouldn't have to bloom? Oh the science!
I've noticed the same thing with this method. I think if you pair it with a certain style of coffee, it might work, but I'm back at blooming too. After reading Jonathan Gagné's book (which states it takes 2 minutes for water to fully penetrate the bean) I've been trying longer blooms, up to two minutes. Those gave me some overextracted, astringent flavors so there's definitely a sweet spot range in bloom time.
For sure, it’s an interesting topic to dig into. Definitely the coffee makes a difference, down to even the processing. But I do think at the very end, in the cup, it all depends on a person’s preferences.
I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and for one I’m consistent about when I test. Also most refractometers are designed to show the same results between 13-30 degrees C.
Hey there, Sprometheus. I haven't bloomed my pour overs in months. There was a video about Tetsu Kasuya's "New Method" that applies a similar principle to the Tales no bloom. It feels like I've removed a lot of busy work and my cups have tasted better than ever.
Tetsu's new method relies on extreme agitation and a super fine grind size, very quick pouring and a tight ratio. Similar to the Tales method in some ways but Tetsu seems to explicitly suggest that he's trying to develop a lazy method that tastes good. Vincent's method is the opposite of lazy unfortunately. It requires a lot of care and precision and a fairly slow pour at least at the start
That’s a good question, and one I don’t fully understand or have the answer to. But when I think about the processes we don’t bloom, like immersion brews in general, I would think it’s more or less a thing that matters more with percolation. The reason for this I would guess is because the Co2 can potentially block or otherwise inhibit some of the extraction as the water passes through, as opposed to the grinds sitting in the water for the whole brew time.
I tried this method too. I don't think it's JUST the 'no bloom' that produces an inferior cup, though that's not doing this method any favors, it's the low brew temps as well. It's like the guy came up with a solution to a problem that didn't exist, lol. Great video even though you can tell that Tales dude just wants to be youtube famous. Kinda cringy actually.
yeah dude, tales yells and is so loud in his videos lol. i agree with you that he’s trying so hard to become youtube famous, he’s made so many damn videos, most of them are just another “new” brewing technique. funny thing, he made a video on how to do the v60 2016 kasuya 4:6 brewing method… AND GUESS WHAT? tales told everyone in that video tutorial to get a chopstick and stir vigorously, even though in kasuya’s own videos, he specifically DOES NOT stir or swirl the coffee. this tales coffee dude didn’t even title his video as “my interpretation” or “my take on kasuya’s 4:6 v60 method”, he deadass straight up titled it “kasuya’s v60 4:6 pourover method in 60 seconds” lol. and you know what this tales guy reply was? “it wasn’t clear whether tetsu kasuya does or does not stir or swirl in his original videos, so it’s my interpretation that he does stir and swirl the coffee” LOL SMH. in both tetsu kasuya’s 2016 championship video where he did his 4:6 brew method live AND where he made another in depth video on how to do his 4:6 method, he clearly DOES NOT stir, swirl, or agitate the coffee in any way, yet this small ass famous hungry small youtuber that is tales coffee, he “interpreted” the brew method tutorial completely wrong and stirred vigorously, which obviously changes the results of the original recipe drastically.
Go to nordvpn.com/sprometheus or use code sprometheus to get a 2-year plan plus 4 additional months with a huge discount.
Great video! thanks for featuring our Single Pour method. Love to chat about brewing with you :)
Thank you my friend! Thanks for sharing your method with everyone, and would be happy to chat coffee soon!
I'm a fan of both Tales Coffee and your channel, so it's great to see this review! I'd also love your thoughts on their more recent "Stall the Fall" method.
Thanks Stavik! I’ll definitely take a look and at the method and share my thoughts.
I've been playing around with Tales Coffee's recipe for at least around six months now, I think that Vince's recipe takes some muscle memory & careful attention to the behavior of the beans to get right. At least with the coffees I've brewed lately, I've added back in a bloom but I gained a lot of insight about water flow & how pouring technique affects the movement of the coffee bed from both their TH-cam content & the technique itself. The lower brew temperature & the final stir are interesting high points in the technique; before I had used the Hoffman method, which by comparison doesn't seem to agitate the coffee bed well enough for single serving brews. For now I've picked things I liked from both methods.
Been waiting on others' insights on Tales' No Bloom method!
I’ve definitely had people ask me my thoughts for awhile now, just took me a minute to get around to it.
As usual, an important video for the discussion that is absent from most of the reviewers thanks to you, everything is important in coffee world waiting the next 🌹
Thank you my friend, I appreciate you.
Interesting! I first tried the Tales' no bloom a few months ago. Previously I had done Hoffman's ultimate V60 technique. Subjectively the no bloom was sweeter and brighter everytime; highlighting my favourite parts of coffee.
I've tried bloom since, but I can't say it's been noticably better or worse. For me, I think I acclimate quickly, so changes in brewing technique apparently snap me out of the doldrums.
The Hario Mugen Dripper, though similar in look to the V60, is designed to be able to brew with one slow continuous pour. I have one and like it a lot.
I have been testing an ”immersion-bloom” method with great results. 55g of dark roast quality beans to 1l of almost boiling water. Pour over 1/4 of the water and let bloom/immerse for up to 2min. Release and Pour over the rest of the water as normal. Makes for a great cup of darkroast👍🏻
I've experimented with bloom vs no bloom and found that my darker roasted coffee does slightly better with no bloom after 2 or 3 weeks past roast but medium roast ended up tasting slightly bitter and hollow in flavor no matter what.
I didn’t have any real dark roasts on hand, but I feel like it could be a toss up with them. I’d be curious to know how much c02 would be left in a dark vs a medium vs a light after 3 weeks.
Agreed on the dark roasts. Since Japan and other Asian countries often go to darker roasts , and the dude from Tales talks about learning over there , I imagine there’s a connection between the roast darkness and the method.
Same here, bitter and hollow with no bloom.
Really interesting observation that older coffees are less affected by bloom 🤔 It’s the good old “It all depends” answer, but I like it.
Haha it definitely depends, and I know a lot of people bloom longer with older coffees. Not only does it depend, but like I said it’s all a matter of preferences.
@@Sprometheus I'm curious, since older coffees have by definition almost less CO2 (degassed more), what's the rationale behind longer blooms with older coffees?
@@InTimeTraveller I've always heard you can afford to bloom shorter
I agree with you, variety is the spice of life, how sweet it is, coffee time
actually very few coffee channels talk enough about tasting, this one does yay!
Haha I do my best to only talk about them when I think its relevant. It is tough to talk flavor in a lot of instances.
@@Sprometheus this means we as a community are lacking in ways to communicate flavours, which is what matters most ultimately, we should talk more flavours :)
Attempting to shave 30s off my pour-over routine, I've been more interested recently in canceling the filter rinse than the bloom. I can't seem to taste the filter paper, and the plastic v60 doesn't act like much of a heatsink. It's trickier seating a dry filter properly, however.
Yeah I think the paper flavor can be pretty subtle, but ranges from filter to filter. But I don’t see a real problem with kicking that part of the process. A lot of traditional Japanese brew methods don’t rise.
2nd video on skipping the bloom. Confirmed the bloom has been talking trash about Spro's mom.
Haha, or maybe I have been about blooms mom….
@@Sprometheus lol
Nice! I've tried the Tales Coffee no bloom a few times. It's been fun to try (and great if I'm in a time crunch!) and it helps it tastes great too. Bouncing back and forth between the two methods. It's also helpful to know about off-roast and bloom/no bloom. Thanks for that!
It’s always good to have a variety of methods, and I think some coffees will always work better in some and not as well in others. But that’s all part of the fun! Cheers!
I've noticed the hollow and bitter astringency finishes aren't actually signs of over extraction or CO2 but are actually from channeling and uneven extractions caused by not getting all the coffee wet initially. I do a blooming period for pour overs (with a stirring of the spoon as well) because I get way more consistent results and never get that horrible astringency flavor.
I don't think it makes sense to pin astringency on over extraction or CO2 because I can throw a three day old coffee into a french press and stir it for a minute and steep for another 10 and there's no astringency. Wouldn't the CO2 dissolve into the french press coffee? The whole idea of CO2 ruining coffee doesn't make sense to me. It's really just the bubbling from the CO2 that can lead to big chunks of the coffee being dry when doing a pour over and creating that a channel and the nasty astringency.
Also grind the might before for your morning coffee. I know it goes against everything we've been taught, but it allows the coffee to degass properly and providing more clarity in the cup. Try it out!
Shout out daily cup of Clever!
I do a singgle pour every day, when it taste a litle bit bitter i will try to grind 2 up to 3 more coarser.
I've been waiting for you to do this :)
Finally got around to it!
With the Tales method, the fast side pour at the end would create more agitation (extraction) that a lighter pour wouldn't, even with the possible bypass. Maybe that balances out the lack of flavour/depth in your tests? You could do a final fast center pour as well to avoid the bypass issue like Lance Hendrick/Elika from Onyx.
You could honestly do a center pour the whole time like the osmotic flow method and avoid it as much as possible.
I wish we could test if a bloom does the same thing for espresso that it does for pour over.
Maybe comparing bloomed and unbloomed shots for crema, since releasing CO2 at low pressure shouldn't dissolve it into foam?
I also have heard the bloom prevents fines migration by locking them in place with water-swollen coffee particles.
That would be a good test for a sifter I think, if a bloomed shot and a sifted bloomed shot came out similar while unbloomed sifted and unsifted shots taste very different/extract differently.
Laziness usually has be using NO-bloom almost 100% of the time. The results are so-so with the medium roast coffee but pretty good with the dark French roast coffee. I'm in the process of trying more roasting methods to see how they fare.
I definitely need to get some quality dark roasts to try this on, may have to roast them up myself.
Did you agitate aggressively with the chopstick at the end of the brew? I can see you moving the chopstick at 3:55 but that was very slow. I'm pointing this out because I have had some great results with this even with a month old medium roast.
Over time I started minimizing the agitation as the brews began tasting over extracted.
@@Sprometheus oh is that so? What works best for me, is to agitate it in such a way that the grounds settled at the bottom also get in the whirlpool. So I hypothesize that some of the water might bypass while the rest will extract and overall provide a balanced brew. I might be wrong though.
I feel like most people don't really understand what's happening under a bloom. Sure it is releasing CO2, but that's in my honest opinion not the most important thing a bloom does, that would be difusion. As the water gets soaked into the coffee it drags flavor compunds to the surface of the gorund coffee (this is a very basic explination, check out the exelent book "the physics of filter coffee" for a more detailed explination) making it easier to extract those flavor componds in the following perculation phases after the bloom. Jonathon Gagne (author of said book) have noticed messurable increeses in extraction (around 1%) by blooming up to 2 whole min compared to more normal bloom times people would usually use. This is not so say people actually SHOULD bloom for 2 min, but it goes to show that CO2 release is not really the only reason to do a bloom
Fyi, Gagne at coffee adastra debunks the bypass theory
When you mentioned bloom becoming a thing in espresso, do you mean pre-infusion or something separate?
Pre-infusion generally, but there is also a thing called “blooming espresso” as well.
The older the coffee gets the lower the temp should be? Did I catch that right?
Sprom, does the timemore's handle without the wooden part get hot? I am planning to get one 😓
Bloom is not for removing CO2 from coffee, let's stop this speculation, please. CO2 is removed anyway, whether you bloom the coffee or not, in fact it will happen even faster *without* blooming. The point of blooming is that the extraction starts already in the blooming phase, but at a lower temperature. You can think of it this way: you take 15g of coffee at room temperature (25C) and add 30-40g of water at 95C, and this heats the coffee to about 60-65C, as opposed to the main brewing phase when the coffee is heated to 85-90 degrees. This is why the coffee gets a different taste.
Question if it made a 4 week old batch taste better but the newer batches not so better then could this mean on old beans it's better to not bloom? 🧐
That was somewhat of a conclusion I came to, but I definitely can’t say that for every coffee at every roast.
@@Sprometheus Yeah for sure!! It's kind of intriguing though and I'm interested to see how it will play out! Going to try it as I have copious amounts of beans currently. In the conclusion though when you think about it also, the beans over time will release it's gases so in theory over a longer waiting time you wouldn't have to bloom? Oh the science!
Finally, waited so long 😉
Hopefully it was worth the wait! Haha
@@Sprometheus yep
I did also try cold blooming suggested by Vince of Tales coffe for making coffe less bitter and more sweety but it didn't work for me!
I should try that out as well. Ive heard of it, but never attempted it.
@@Sprometheus waiting for your experience
I've noticed the same thing with this method. I think if you pair it with a certain style of coffee, it might work, but I'm back at blooming too.
After reading Jonathan Gagné's book (which states it takes 2 minutes for water to fully penetrate the bean) I've been trying longer blooms, up to two minutes. Those gave me some overextracted, astringent flavors so there's definitely a sweet spot range in bloom time.
For sure, it’s an interesting topic to dig into. Definitely the coffee makes a difference, down to even the processing. But I do think at the very end, in the cup, it all depends on a person’s preferences.
What grind setting on a C40 would you use?
That's how I always brew! A very slow single pour 🥺
If it works and tastes good then there’s no issue.
Gotta let your samples cool off before refracting!
I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and for one I’m consistent about when I test. Also most refractometers are designed to show the same results between 13-30 degrees C.
This is way off topic…with so many Starbucks Cafes closing where will the Clover machines end up? It was the ultimate bloomer.
Haha where are the Clovers on the second hand market?
After “no bloom” please review longer blooms like 1min, 2min and 3min.
For sure! It’s definitely something on the list!
I don't get it.. why can't the CO2 not escape when you just dump all of the water in at once. I suspect something else is making "blooming"work.
Hey there, Sprometheus. I haven't bloomed my pour overs in months. There was a video about Tetsu Kasuya's "New Method" that applies a similar principle to the Tales no bloom.
It feels like I've removed a lot of busy work and my cups have tasted better than ever.
That’s good to hear. I’ve seen Tetsu’s older method, but not the new one, I’ll have to check it out.
Tetsu's new method relies on extreme agitation and a super fine grind size, very quick pouring and a tight ratio. Similar to the Tales method in some ways but Tetsu seems to explicitly suggest that he's trying to develop a lazy method that tastes good. Vincent's method is the opposite of lazy unfortunately. It requires a lot of care and precision and a fairly slow pour at least at the start
I wonder if the CO2 dissolves and forms carbonic acid.
I feel like I’ve heard that it does before, but I don’t remember where I heard/saw it and can’t find a scientific opinion on it so not sure.
Why can you skip the bloom in immersion brewing?
That’s a good question, and one I don’t fully understand or have the answer to. But when I think about the processes we don’t bloom, like immersion brews in general, I would think it’s more or less a thing that matters more with percolation. The reason for this I would guess is because the Co2 can potentially block or otherwise inhibit some of the extraction as the water passes through, as opposed to the grinds sitting in the water for the whole brew time.
@@Sprometheus Wouldn't a bloom also make sense in immersion brews in order to avoid bitter substances with the escape of CO2?
I don’t bloom with my aeropress. Tastes amazing.
Me either, but I do think the magic of the plunge is the key there.
I will try it out with a bloom
When is the Clever video coming? 😀
I’m sure I’ll get around to it. I just don’t feel like I have anything massively interesting to add to the conversation about it.
@@Sprometheus Fair enough 🤛🏽
I never use a bloom... but that's because I don't own a pourover setup =D
Well that makes sense, but then how do you make coffee?
@@Sprometheus Usually it's a shot of espresso, but depending on my mood I might make an aeropress or a french press :)
Thanks for another interesting video. 👍🏻
What are some of your favourite British tv shows?
Have yourself a great weekend.
Of course, thanks for watching!
I love Peep Show, People Just Do Nothing, The Inbetweeners, The Mighty Boosh, Spaced, Detectorists and a bunch more.
@@Sprometheus - People Just Do Nothing and Inbetweeners were both funny. 😂🤣
Hey!
What’s good Cheekster!
I thought a Bloom represented FRESH BEANS, cause fresh has Co2 ..Am I right?
First. Thnx
Thanks for watching!
I could compare no bloom to any normal automatic coffee maker, so why bother not blooming a manual pour over xD
I tried this method too. I don't think it's JUST the 'no bloom' that produces an inferior cup, though that's not doing this method any favors, it's the low brew temps as well. It's like the guy came up with a solution to a problem that didn't exist, lol. Great video even though you can tell that Tales dude just wants to be youtube famous. Kinda cringy actually.
yeah dude, tales yells and is so loud in his videos lol. i agree with you that he’s trying so hard to become youtube famous, he’s made so many damn videos, most of them are just another “new” brewing technique.
funny thing, he made a video on how to do the v60 2016 kasuya 4:6 brewing method… AND GUESS WHAT? tales told everyone in that video tutorial to get a chopstick and stir vigorously, even though in kasuya’s own videos, he specifically DOES NOT stir or swirl the coffee. this tales coffee dude didn’t even title his video as “my interpretation” or “my take on kasuya’s 4:6 v60 method”, he deadass straight up titled it “kasuya’s v60 4:6 pourover method in 60 seconds” lol.
and you know what this tales guy reply was? “it wasn’t clear whether tetsu kasuya does or does not stir or swirl in his original videos, so it’s my interpretation that he does stir and swirl the coffee” LOL SMH.
in both tetsu kasuya’s 2016 championship video where he did his 4:6 brew method live AND where he made another in depth video on how to do his 4:6 method, he clearly DOES NOT stir, swirl, or agitate the coffee in any way, yet this small ass famous hungry small youtuber that is tales coffee, he “interpreted” the brew method tutorial completely wrong and stirred vigorously, which obviously changes the results of the original recipe drastically.